Watercress Pesto with Fireplace Cooked T-Bone Steak and Polenta Chips

We spent an idyllic week in September eating fresh figs, amazing cheese and indecent prosciutto in Italy’s Le Marche region. Our swish villa came with a communal veggie patch which generously yielded the tastiest tomatoes that have ever entered my mouth – they made the extortionately priced Swedish tomatoes I’ve tried to avoid for the last year and a half taste of gravel by comparison. Mini aubergines, sweet little peppers and not so sweet chillies were there for us to tuck into as well.



But best of all was an orchard full of cherries, damsons, and most thrillingly, fig trees. Ripe, sticky, swollen figs seemed to make it into every meal: wrapped in prosciutto, baked with honey and doused in goats’ curd – each one, more delicious than the last. Fresh eggs from the very free range chickens kept our coats nice and glossy and super thin pizza from the wood fired oven was spectacular. It was a rustically gastronomic week of cooking for ourselves that featured a classic caponata and back to back evenings of chargrilled turbot on one night and barbecued sea bass the next – all served with the freshest salads imaginable.



If you are looking for an idyllic and quiet spot for a relaxing Italian break, look no further than Casal dei Fichi where Ian and Bob will look after you like rock stars and even hook you up with gastronomic events where you can make your own olive oil or go truffle hunting.

When we went back to Cowie’s parents’ house in Somerset, we wanted to continue our Italian adventure, but with local produce. We visited Kimbers' excellent Farm Shop where a fabulous T-Bone steak gave me the eye from the chiller cabinet. When you find yourself flirting with a piece of meat, you know it’s going to be good.

We then went to John Hurd’s Watercress farm in nearby Hill Deverill. They don’t normally deal with walk in customers and tend to sell their organic watercress direct to Waitrose by the lorry load. But Simon Hurd, very kindly, gave us a tour of the farm and told us all about the ins and outs of watercress farming. It was great to meet such a passionate chap, who was so knowledgeable and proud about his produce. I loved the fact he sprays his watercress with garlic solution which keeps the bugs at bay and that the peppery mustard oil taste is nature’s way of protecting itself from being eaten. Amazingly it contains more calcium than milk and more Vitamin C than oranges.

We left with a box of watercress, Simon’s infectious enthusiasm coursing through our veins and a recipe booklet that was full of fun suggestions, including the idea of making watercress pesto which sounded like the ideal accompaniment to our steak.

We kept things simple and decided to cook the Kimbers' T-Bone steak over the fire place and to serve it with polenta chips and an emerald green watercress pesto - as a way of rekindling our Italian memories.

Steak ingredients:

T Bone steak
Olive oil
Rock salt and pepper

Watercress pesto ingredients adapted from John Hurd’s recipe book:

1 bag of watercress
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
1 tablespoon of toasted walnuts
50-75ml olive oil
50g finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:



Make the watercress peso first. In a large bowl, blitz the watercress with a hand blender, then add the toasted nuts and garlic and blend them too. Add the olive oil and continue to blend into a luscious green paste. Add salt and pepper and then the parmesan. Mix together and taste for seasoning. Pour into a sterilised jar and store in the fridge until you need it.



For the polenta chips, simply make some polenta following the on pack instructions and let it cook until it has formed a creamy sludge. At this stage mix through some chopped rosemary. Pour this into a baking tray and allow to cool and set. When this has happened cut the polenta into chip sized chunks, douse in seasoning and olive oil and roast in a hot oven until crispy.





Season the steak handsomely with rock salt. A Brazilian friend (hey Marco) taught me to coat the meat extravagantly with salt when cooking it over a flame. It helps to form a crust and guarantees an amazingly tasty steak - just make sure you bash the salt off before serving. Grind over some pepper and get your fire nice and hot. We decided to cook the steak over Cowie’s open fireplace which has the benefit of getting super hot, and a built in extractor fan, otherwise known as a chimney.



Once the flames have died down, simply grill the meat over the coals until rare on the fillet side and medium rare on the sirloin side and leave to rest.

Carve the steak so you get a nice piece of sirloin and fillet and serve with watercress pesto, polenta chips and a watercress salad. The watercress pesto has a strong, peppery tang that marries perfectly with the bloody steak.

Hawksmoor Steak Tasting

We were honoured to be invited to what must be the most indulgent evening of the year. Imagine being seduced by 17 rounds of red middled, char skinned, deep flavoured, borderline porno-sexual, steak. Cowie and I were in carnivore heaven courtesy of Hawksmoor.

It was a fascinating evening during which we met some fascinating people, gorged ourselves on top class meat and saw behind the scenes in one of our favourite restaurants.

Our sneaky peak at the kitchen revealed a pleasing simplicity. All the kitchen consisted of was a preparation area, some storage space and a brilliantly rustic grill. But the best thing of all was the sight of a hairdryer which they use to get the grill up to heat. No need for super duper, mega expensive broiler grills imported from America here. Just reassuringly practical cooking.





The evening was divided into 4 sections. In the first round we were invited to try an array of sirloin steaks. Without going into superfluous detail, our collective opinion was that the steak from Northfield Farm (Hereford) and the Ginger Pig Longhorn were our favourite. The Hereford had a light, nutty flavour and firm texture with had us cooing with meaty glee. The Longhorn, which is Hawksmoor’s house sirloin, was magnificent. It was served on the bone, which probably helped keep the meat stretched out during cooking, and resulted in a steak which bordered on being too good to eat. It had the texture of top class seared tuna and a flavour of bovine brilliance. The Ginger Pig is rightly proud of their Longhorn cattle. As Tim Wilson (Mr Ginger Pig) says, "If you are going to raise animals you might as well get ones that are nice to look at."



Image from polandeze on Flickr

We found Northfield Farm’s Sussex breed was very light and had a mild flavour which contrasted very starkly with their Angus/Charolais cross which exuded a stiltony flavour that had us gasping. Some loved it. Others were less sure whether they wanted to feast on cheesey meat.

Next up were the rib eyes. 10 of them no less. It seems mean to complain that some were a bit dull, but they were: the Casterbridge breed from Fairfax was a bit dry and Beefeatery; a Hereford Cross from Graig Farm Organics was like a slice of roast beef; Aberdeen Angus from Select was just a bit boring; and the Hereford from Rare was a bit snoozy too. But some really got our pulses going. Our favourites were the Ginger Pig Longhorn (again) that was silky and had a pleasant tang of bonemeal, the outstanding Fairfax Hereford was blessed with a caramel and fudgy flavour that had me trying to steal a second piece and the Galloway from Farmer Sharp and Red Ruby from Pipers Farm were both rich, moist and classically grassy. It was another vindication of Hawksmoor’s selection of Ginger Pig’s Longhorn meat as their house steak.

At this stage we were achingly full. I was sweating and beginning to have meaty hallucinations. The finale was spectacular.

A vast rump was ceremonially placed at the head of the table in front of Huw and Will, our charming hosts. It was so big we feared the table might collapse. Striped with char marks from the grill and smelling addictively of BBQ it had us all glued to it like teenagers around an X Factor star opening a shopping centre. This photo of Lizzie and Helen ogling it probably sums up our collective sense of awe.





It was much firmer than the sirloin and the rib eye, which is natural. The rump has to work a lot harder and yields meat that is tougher, but rammed full of deep flavour. As we chewed, the flavour developed and had us grinning. But this was only the start of the excitement. Huw then invited us to try a piece of picanha, which is known outside of South America as Rump Cap. In Argentina and Brazil it is revered as being a steak man’s steak. Because of the rich seam of fat and it’s less strenuous existence, it is full of flavour, moist and tender. The holy trinity.





Then things got even more exciting. A flatiron steak emerged from the kitchen. This is an American term for what I had previously called feather or blade steak. It is taken from the shoulder and is seamed luxuriously with fat. I often buy feather steak because it is cheap, tender, and cooks brilliantly. This Aberdeen Angus flat iron steak, from Jack O’Shea had a livery tang that had me cooing with delight. I was elated that we ended on such an interesting note. I went along to Hawksmoor hoping to sponge up some knowledge about steak and was so pleased that we were treated to a couple of interesting additions to the normal fare of rib eye, fillet and sirloin. Flat-iron and Picanha should be on every steak aficionado’s radar.

We finished with puddings and coffee which included the incredible pyramid jelly created by Bompas and Parr. Cowie’s rhubarb sorbet with a shot of rhubarb liqueur was as if someone had created spring in a dessert.



It was a pleasure to meet the likes of David Strange from Elitist Review whose red corduroy suit and equally loud personality added a flamboyant air to the evening. It was also brilliant to meet Allan and Erica from Steaklovers.net who certainly know their meat and to catch up the gang: Niahm, Helen, Lizzie, Helen YP and Chris.

Thank you Will and Huw for such an incredible experience. My mind and steak repertoire have been expanded, as has my waistline. If nothing else our findings confirmed that the meat being served currently at Hawksmoor is straight out of the top drawer.



P.S.

I’ve got an idea as a development of our steak immersion. Seeing as the worlds of wine, coffee, honey and spirits all have tasting wheels, wouldn’t it be fun to create a tasting wheel for steak. It would be a great way of helping people to understand how to discern what makes steak great. Maybe Hawksmoor could team up with Ginger Pig to pioneer this. Or maybe I’m a bit slow and it already exists... if anyone wants to run with the idea, can I be involved as a taster!?



Image from Caroline on Crack on Flickr.

Steak in Chicago - Gibsons vs David Burke

Image courtesy of Anotherpintplease on Flickr via Creative Commons

Chicago is my kind of town. Urbane. Steeped in exciting history. On a lake so big it feels like an ocean. The home of the skyscraper. Oozing exciting restaurants like Alinea, Charlie Trotters and Moto. Posted there on work for a few days I put some feelers out about where to eat. Fiona Beckett, the Frugal Cook, came up trumps by sending me a brilliant article she had written on the subject. I used it as my bible!

Top of my list were Frontera Grill, which is famous for its Mexican food and a bunch of steak houses. My theory is that Americans do steak and Mexican food far better than we tend to over in Blighty. Sadly, we had to spurn the Frontera Grill, in favour of focussing on steak. In part this was due to their website which looked like it had been created in the 1980s by someone afflicted with colour blindness.

Our first port of call was Gibsons. 2 large, sipping tequilas and a couple of beers to the good, we were in the mood for embracing our inner carnivore. The restaurant was packed. Throbbing. A seething mass of greedy consumption. Just how a good steak house should feel. Not quite and deferential. But bristling with steak knives and humming with bravado and virility. For me nothing gets closer to the spirt of America than a restaurant that specialises in overfeeding people with expensive (and delicious) meat.

Upon arrival we jested around with the girls at the front desk. Jokingly I asked what she recommended, expecting her to say "steak", but instead she spent the next minute or so expounding the virtues of their double baked potato. I pictured this as simply being two baked potatoes. But it turned out it means a potato that has been baked twice!

We were lead to our tables, having been fashionably made to wait by a gentleman dressed in a white jacket. No sooner than we had sat down than we had been given a glass of iced water each and another white jacketed waiter was showcasing a range of tantalising steaks. It has only struck me what a great marketing ploy this is. And bravo to that. We couldn't resist and almost tripped over ourselves as we pointed and blurted out medium rare.

I had W.R.’s Chicago Cut and Patrick very modestly went for a small rump along with a small side salad (that was vast) and some creamed spinach. Apparently the W.R. Chicago Cut is quite famous. It is a bone in rib eye named after William Rice, the Chicago Tribune Food and Wine Columnist who used to adore it. I really am a sucker for a steak with a bit of history.

The steaks were both excellent. Mine was moist, charred, juicy, tender and seemingly never ending. I loved the crispy fat around the bone and the way the meat takes centre stage, just as Sinatra and Streisland used to here in the restaurant's former years. There's no messing around with chips, salads and dodgy tomatoes (unless you ask for them). The Americans do steak so much better than we do. They treat it as an art form and aggressively debate the merits between wet and dry aging. At Gibsons they wet age their meat which is frowned upon by the steak-onados. I cheekily asked whether the cattle had been grass fed and was laughed at as the man in the white jacked proudly explained they were grain fed USDA prime. This steak was hard to fault. The only slight whiff of criticism would be that the meat could have had more depth of flavour.

All around us groups of men (with a few women scattered in for equality's sake) gorged themselves on giant lobster from Australia, steaks the size of Chicago and cakes that burst out of the normal confines you'd imagine constrain the word gluttony. We couldn't help but be charmed by the intoxicating atmosphere and left both physically and emotionally fattened up.

The following evening I went to David Burke's Primehouse at the James Hotel for part two of my steak adventure. The website claims, impressively:

"The restaurant features meats hand-picked from Creekstone Farms in Kentucky that are dry-aged on the premises in a Himalayan salt-tiled aging room....

... Prime is the name of our prized bull. Residing in the bovine splendor of Creekstone Farm, this magnificent 2500-pound Black Angus senior herd sire has a proven ability to breed offspring that achieve the highly coveted USDA quality grade in Creekstone’s proprietary progeny testing program.

Marbling is what imparts the unique flavor and juiciness of high quality beef, and Angus beef is recognized as the superior marbling beef breed. But Prime takes it to the next level. Based upon computer modeling of Prime’s lineage and offspring, he ranks in the top 2% of the active 14,361 Angus bulls in the United States with recorded purebred offspring. That means Prime’s unique genetics and offspring provide the finest dining experiences across the United States."

Wow. That's some serious attention to detail. I'd kill to see inside their Himalayan salt-tiled aging room. And to actually feature the exact bull that is the sire of all the meat is even more AWEsome. Having said all this, it does make things feel a bit cryogenic and weird! It takes away the image of cattle grazing on the Welsh hills and a bit of the magic. They even supply the name of their beast - Prime 207L.



Danny and I arrived early and were immediately shown to an empty booth. The restaurant was very smart as you'll see from the image above, but lacked the buzz of Gibsons and felt a bit flat. The waiters here wear black as if to add a more scientific and premium edge to contrast with the white jackets further uptown. Our waiter was extremely efficient and professional. It was the sort of performance that would see him alone being reviewed ahead of the steak back in London. But here this sort of service is the norm. When Danny and I noticed that he reminded us both of Ben Stiller's performance of a nurse in Happy Gilmore we almost had to walk out because we couldn't contain ourselves.



Instead of bread we were given what can only be described as a very well cooked Yorkshire pudding in its own little saucepan. A great touch of theatre, even if it was a bit odd and failed to satiate my desire for bread!

Then came some miso glazed scallops which looked sad, small and lacked any miso flavour. The lobster fried rice they came with was only two thirds accurate and missed the only exciting ingredient. Never over promise like this. It made me wish I had order the Angry Lobster, which has to go down as one of the best named dishes I've seen in a long time.

We were both drawn like mosquitoes to a flame towards their 55 day aged 20oz bone in rib eye which the menu proudly points out was voted Chicago's best dry aged steak in 2008. It was served perfectly medium rare. It had a slight crust and deep flavour. The flesh melted away to the soundtrack in my head of Blur's "Tender". Our Caesar salad was made at our table for added drama and extra freshness. It was all hard to fault. Prime 207L is one impressive beast.

I loved the contrasting experiences. The steak at both was excellent with David Burke just shading it for the flavour added by the dry aging process. But overall, the atmosphere at Gibsons far outdid the stiff and slightly contrived vibe at the DB's Primehouse. It's quite telling when you look at David Burke's website and find his range of flavour mists, dusts, pastrami salmon and salt. He's obviously a hell of a cook, but it just all seems a bit false and gimmicky. As a result Gibsons wins this little battle. Next time I'm keen to try out Morton's which steak-onados seem to approve of. I'm now looking forward to continuing my quest for the perfect steak in London. Any suggestions?

Kimber's Steak on the Fire

Cowie has raved about how she grew up cooking mammoth steaks on their family's open fire... Given that Agas are terrible for cooking steak properly, this is a great idea for many country houses. Steaks cooked on our Aga tend to go from being raw to grey - somehow they completely bypass the lovely medium rare stage that is the Holy Grail of the edible bovine world.

I've been badgering Cowie to have "fire cooked steaks" for months now. And finally she gave in! Success... It just goes to show that nagging isn't just for girls. It works on them too. It just takes patience. I had to set a weekly alarm to go off just to be safe.

So off we went to Kimber's farm shop for a special trip... It's one of the joys of spending the weekend in Somerset. To break free from London and indulge in life as it should be. We parked in the farm yard and breathed in the deep, sweet, intoxicating smell of cowshit. It's without doubt one of Cowie's favourite smells. And is the hallmark of a top quality purveyor of meat. Maybe Moens and Dove's should start pumping out pooey smells to attract customers like supermarkets do with the smell of bread.

All of Kimber's meat is of the highest quality. I couldn't help myself from touching everything. I stroked a turkey and almost cuddled a bristly pork belly. My eyes were transfixed by the way that geese have naturally pre-scored skin that is geometrically perfect. Their duck breasts were vast - about the size of my face. Duck hearts, pig's tongues, liver, kidneys, snouts and trotters were proudly on display next to prime cuts of meat. Tamsyn (Cowie's mum) and I got very excited about their faggots... which are made from lungs, kidney, heart and liver. They've tried making them without lungs in the past but they are too dense. You need the lungs to add the lightness that makes faggots so special. Cowie wasn't so impressed by the faggots - in fact her reaction of "they're full of all the rubbish bits" almost got us thrown out of the shop!

Mrs Kimber is a fantastic meat expert. The previous week she had been to a meat show at Smithfields to exhibit a huge rib of beef and a dressed turkey. The trade reaction had been so overwhelmingly good that a Frenchman had bought the beef to take home to France... higher praise than this is hard to find! I guess that's why the Frogs call us Les Rosbeefs.

Talking of beef... after we had finished ogling all of the meat in Kimber's store we picked up a couple of giant rump steaks paid up. As Mrs Kimber was settling the bill we started talking about turkeys. This Christmas they are due to sell around 1,000 birds.. which seems pretty impressive to me. Just as she was telling us how they are all grown on site and killed in the barn I looked out of the window to see that it had suddenly started snowing... but in fact the whole farm was being treated to turkey feather snow storm!

Cowie's dad took control of the steak. Salt, pepper and oil did the job. We sandwiched the meat between a toasting wire and balanced it on the scorchingly hot embers of the dining room fire...





4 minutes on each side and the same for resting yielded a perfectly scorched and rare steak. All the meaty, fleshy smells are extracted by the chimney. So it is not only cheap on fuel but also great for stopping the house from smelling of burning meat. I'm not going to have my steak cooked any other way from now on!

http://www.kimbersfarmshop.co.uk

Paul & Ruth Kimber
Higher Stavordale Farm
Barrow Lane
Charlton Musgrove
Wincanton
BA9 8HJ

Tel: 01963 33177

Celebratory Bodean's

Photo from Eyedropper - one of the brilliant bloggers behind The Great British Food Map on Channel 4.

"Bodean's, Bodean's, Bodean's", sang Edwin as we switched from light blue to black at Stockwell. With a glazed look and gyroscopic approach to balancing we somehow emerged at Clapham Common "in the mood for food". I had just spent the last 9 hours whizzing back from a meeting in South West France, whilst Edwin, Anna and Cowie had been busy guzzling champagne to celebrate them all brilliantly passing their surveying exam - the dreaded APC.

Given that none of us had eaten anything you could describe as lunch, we were all famished. Bodean's couldn't have fitted the bill any better. Margaritas ticked all the boxes, reminding me of the scene in Bottom where Eddie and Richie create a cocktail called the "Esther Rantzen" because "it pulls the gums back over your teeth"... (the ingredients are Pernod, Ouzo (a wee drop), marmalade (one glob to taste), salt (around the rim of the *glass*))

We feasted on sinful pulled pork quesadillas, nachos with gallons of guacamole and crab cakes for starters... all great and just what we wanted. Having said that it really wasn't a very sensible choice of starters - or as Bodean's calls them - teasers.

Already quite full, we ordered almost the entire menu! My combo of smoked BBQ'd chicken, smoked sausage and pulled pork was an epic display of meat. It tasted divine, even if the chicken breast was a bit dry. I was surrounded by sensational BBQ beans, massively exciting baby back ribs that were disappointingly tough in comparison to Edwin's astonishingly good spare ribs, tepid onion rings and metres of kitchen roll to help us keep the grease levels to a minimum!

Cowie's rib-eye steak was apparently very good - underscored by the fact that she didn't give anyone else a taste! Somehow Cowie also snuck a salad and some vegetables into the mix when none of us were watching. But again, no-one got a look in here! Here's what Cowie had to say for herself...

"A salad and greens are clearly a must in an American meat diner.... well, an essential for a Cowie at least.

The mixed roast veg platter was satisfactory with a good array of peppers and courgettes. The green salad was a green salad, and probably totally unnecessary.

But I liked them both though and shared them with no-one... I am selfish with my rabbit food!"

Anna did a great job of summing up the atmosphere...

"... it certainly had a Greece-Dallas hybrid charm and quite simply booths are under used in London restaurants- yes, it is like eating in a train carriage but there is a place for that. In all honesty, a restaurant that laminates their menus to double up as plate meats is right up my street - all of which was perfectly punctuated by a high school gym team waitress. All in all an excellent atmosphere that was as hearty as the food!"

I love Bodean's. It's one of my favourite place in London. The only downside is that it's not great for your waist-line or sex life! My top tip, try to get the sexy times in before dinner! It would be great for S&BJ day - March 14th.

Cattle Grid, Balham

Balham is going from strength to strength. Whilst claims that Balham is the new Notting Hill might be a little bit premature... the area is definitely on the rise.

Aside from Gazette and at a push the Devonshire, you will struggle to find a decent steak in Balham. Until now.

It has filled the slightly awkward boots left by Raviolo - which didn't last very long. When you walk out of Balham station you are greeted with the sight of a large statue of a cow which makes you think you are in Milton Keynes... hardly the centre of the bovine universe.

Cattle Grid is essentially a steak version of the Gourmet Burget Kitchen. No table service. Utilitarian look and feel. Short new world wine list packed with bold reds. You get a choice of steaks - rib eye, sirloin or T bone, supplemented by two variations on piggy ribs or a burger. I admire the fact that the menu is so bare. I hate the way that some restaurants offer a billion options - Starbuck's is currently boasting that they have 80,000 different combinations of coffee. Fuck off and just give me a good espresso. Oh hang on... you can't.

... but I think I'd like to see some different cuts on the menu. Maybe a feather steak, or a hanger steak... or possibly a little bit of rump. Maybe, they'll do this once they've established themselves.

We ordered 2 rib eye steaks - medium rare. One arrived perfectly cooked but the other one was grey through the middle. Possibly we should have sent it back. The chips were good and we were delighted with the watercress salad. My bernaise sauce was a bit stingy - but then again I do regard steak eating as an excuse to eat bernaise sauce!

One of us had a very substantial burger which looked good. But strangely we weren't permitted to request how it was cooked. They insist on serving it medium well which is a bit odd. I love a juicy burger... but a meaty, cloying burger is less fun.

Our bottle of Argie Malbec was good value and was a perfect match for the steak... as it always is. And at well under £20 it was good value.

But the star of the show was without question the onion rings. Soft, sweet onions hid beneath a crisp, light batter. Stunning... if a little bit naughty.

We couldn't resist baked cheese cake which was served with very vanillery ice cream. Tremendous. We were really impressed.

Cattle Grid isn't the finished article. But it is an improvement on Raviolo... and will we're very pleased to have a steak restaurant in Balham. But the key question is... will we go back? I won't actively avoid it... but I reckon the steak is better at Gazette and Bodeans... plus they offer dishes that Cowie would like to tuck into too. So I have a feeling that I will return at some point... but it won't be a regular occurence. If you are going to concentrate just on serving steak... it has to knock your socks off.

Gaucho Grill

Victoria and Alex gave us a very good pre meal analysis. Expect glitz and glamour; immaculate mear; slick service; steep prices; good chips. But occassionaly watch out for inconsistent service, greasy vegetables and listen to how you should have your steak.

Armed with this wealth of advice it all seemed to correct as we shown to our table amongst a dark and sultry dining room. A huge space, crawling with money and girls who had spent hours getting ready and men who were about to spend a fortune.

We settled in and were shown the array of steaks on a wooden board. The waitress gabbled through the description so rapidly we didn't catch a word she said. But Victoria had given us a good sumamry so we weren't too fussed. I ordered a 400g lump of rib eye which the waitress advised me to have medium. I insisted that it should be pink and she said it would be. Cowie ordered a trout ceviche and a prawn and palm heart salad.

The trout ceviche wasn't. It was a collection of three generous slices of cured trout. But it hadn't been cured in citric acid. Now I am clearly no Peruvian but I did think that lemon or lime juice was the central ingredient. A bit like ordering toast and getting bread. It was very tasty, just a bit of a problem for anyone who gets annoyed by misdescriptions.

Then onto the main show. The warm up was over and the headline act was taking the stage. My mega steak arrived with great cermeony. Lots of bernaise. Some chips. A big hunk of....

O dear....

Massively overcooked steak. Grey and rigid it stood lifeless like those a performance artist in Covent Garden. And the chips were cold.

We called over the waitress with a smile and a firm look. She whisked it away and told the chef to cook a fresh one. Meanwhile Cowie devoured her prawn and palm heart salad. It was tasty but incredibly stingy. Cowie counted six medium sized prawns. And then realised that they had all been sliced in half so she had actually only had 3! Three prawns! Not good enough.

10 minutes later my replacement steak arrived. I could hear it mooing as it arrived. As I sliced it in half I could hear the staff collectively sigh with relief. Or maybe I could hear myself. It was tender, juicy and tasted of animal. You could really taste the beef. A delightful piece of meat. The bernaise sauce was fantastic but the second bowl of chips were as cold as the first. Disappointing.

Our carafe of Malbec was delicious. But we didn't need it pouring for us. If you are given a jug of wine the protocol is that you pour it yourself. Cowie only wanted one glass. Having finished her first glass the waitress steamed over and agressively filled it to the brim leaving me with 3/4 of a steak to eat with no wine. Yet another irritant. Cowie and I swapped glasses. But we shouldn't have had to.

Scanning the room we completely agreed that this is one of the best restaurants we have been to for people spotting. Over Cowie's left shoulder was a girl tarted up to the nines wearing a short black dress, some scary heels with a tattoo on her foot. The both fesated on well done steaks whilst drinking glasses of rose topped up to the brim. Kissing and fondling their way through the meal they were having a great time.

It's also great fun to watch the chef at work on the grill. With an earpiece wedged into the side of his head I was surprised he managed to completely balls up my steak.

It was one of the best steaks I have had in London. But given that the first was awful the overall mark averages out as being well below par. Add to that Cowie's measly prawn salad and the abysmal service and you've got glitzy money trap. Give me the steaks we had in Buenos Aires or the USA anyday.

Black and Blue

Joe and I went to Black and Blue on Wigmore Street for a well deserved lunch. I've heard mixed things about their steaks ranging from how brilliant they are to quite the reverse.

Black and Blue is a great name. Arguably my favourite chain restaurant name. It's the Ronseal of the steak house world. It's name alone had raised my expectations. I was looking forward to London's best steak. Charred on the outside and mooing in the middle. So soft that I would barely have to chew.

The space is open, airy and welcoming. Families and business people filled the booths and open tables. Stylish old fashioned Oxo posters filled huge wall spaces. Green leather booths make good use of the excess cow that we don't want to eat. Joe and I thought the fact that the restaurant smelled of a mixture between fish fingers and sweet and sour Chinese food a bit strange. I was expecting the smell of charred meat that you get when everyone starts BBQing on the first vaguely sunny day of April!

Joe's chargrilled king prawns looked fantastic. Blackened and dunked in a rich buttery, garlic sauce. It's just a shame Joe didn't feel like sharing! My retro prawn cocktail was delicious. Crisp lettuce. Plenty of sauce. Lashings of prawns. And just the right temperature. I would have liked to had a bread roll to go with it like the woman on the table next door was brought though.

Now for the serious stuff. Rib eye steak. I asked for mine to be black and blue - charred on the outside and rare in the middle. It was beautifully tender. Perfectly rare. But it was far from the pinacle. It was a million miles away from being the Platonic form of steak. That abstract ideal that is unreachable. The kind of thing that even Heston struggles to create. But they should have got closer to it than this.

Whilst I was pleased with it's juicy rareness, it didn't have much flavour. Underseasoned. Undercharred. Where's that meaty, smokey, BBQ and wood chip experience?

It's all about the promise. At Pizza Express they promise you a good pizza cooked and served quickly. Simple. They don't promise much more than that. If they bring you a good pizza in a short period of time you leave feeling pleased that Pizza Express is a good place. They cook a far better pizza than I can do at home.

If you transfer the same thing to Black and Blue - they promise you a black and blue steak - charred on the outside and tender in the middle. In my one experience of their steaks they only delivered half of the promise which isn't good enough if they want to become the UK's leading chain of steak restaurants. I put my steak knife down after finishing wishing that I had been allowed to cook it myself.

Overall, it's got a lot going for it. Cool atmosphere, a menu where you want to eat everything, an amazing name and a good wine list. I just wish they did better steaks!

London is a bit barren when it comes to places that specialise in steak and deliver on it. La Pampa in Clapham is unreliable. Black and Blue isn't as great as I had hoped. Hawksmoor on the other hand was fantastic - it's just a shame it's the wrong end of town. L'Entrecote in Marylebone is pretty special. And I have never had a bad steak at Mon Plaisir.

If only we were in the same league as the Americans when it comes to cooking steaks. Beef Officianado's site is fantastic. It almost makes me want to emigrate! Us Brits don't seem to get it.

If anyone has got any suggestions for where to find the perfect steak in London please let me know!!!

La Pampa, Argentinian Steak House

Photo from Sagasurfer on Flickr

7 of us met up at La Pampa for a steak fest in honour of Wakers' birthday. Excited by the pospect of tucking into untold amounts of steak we settled in and didn't have many problems working out what to have...

3 bottles of deep purple Malbec and a variety of steaks to feed 7 please. Will and I wisely chose rare rump steaks. Opting for taste and size over tenderness. The others all chose fillets... some with eggs and some without.

The waiters took our orders very efficiently but with a not so much as a smile. Maybe they were just being Argentinian? Our steaks arrived moments later and all hell broke loose. I was presented with a medium well done fillet steak... wrong. Eventually it got sorted out but they had only achieved a 30% success rate in terms of getting the orders right, which is surprising considering we'd all ordered steak!

My rare rump steak tasted delicious despite being on the dry side of medium and one of my eggs had spent so long under the pass that it had cooked to the consistency of a hard boiled egg. The meat was tasty and had been well seasoned. But it was the chips and sauteed potatoes that won the day. Fluffy on the inside and crunchy on the outside, just like God intended.

This time last year I went to see Suz, my sister, in Argentina for a pilgrimage to gorge on the world's best beef. Each mouthful was to die for. Rich, tasty, thick cuts of beef are grilled to perfection from every part of the animal. I've never eaten meat like it. It's stunning. Which is why I came back from Buenos Aires around a stone heavier after spending just under a week there!

Argentinian beef isn't hung. Because the beasts wonder around, stress free, on the Pampas and don't get fed anything apart from grass the meat is already really tender and doesn't need to be aged. In many ways it has the texture of veal and is never chewy. This therefore makes me wonder... if the Argentines eat their beef fresh and unhung, does that mean that transporting it half way across the globe acts like hanging it? Then add onto this the fact that the transportation isn't particularly great for the environment and you start to wonder what all the fuss is about.

This is how it's done by the gauchos (photo from Flickr)


Certainly the meat at La Pampa is nothing in comparison to steaks in Buenos Aires and it also isn't up to the quality of the steak you get at the likes of Hawksmoor near Liverpool Street. So shouldn't we be supporting british farmers and opt instead for incredibly good British beef. Afterall, the Argentinian cattle are mainly descendents of a couple of Hereford beasts, so they're pretty much ex-pat British cows anyway!

We had a great time at La Pampa, despite the surly service and erratic cooking of the meat. The wine was great and the atmosphere was fun and enegetic. And more to the point how could we not have a good time celebrating Wakers' birthday. The groups thoughts on the evening were... grumpy service and "is it wrong to go for a kebab" because they had chosen the tiny fillet steaks.

Happy Birthay Wakers.

Meat Marinading

I seriously want one of these bad boys. I got an email from This Next recommending a whole bunch of meat related goodies and this popped. It sucks the air out of the chamber and then tumbles the meat around in the marinade and your meat pops out tender, juicy and oh so tasty. I've just got to get my hands on one now!

From This Next:

"Reveo MariVac Food Tumbler brings the commercial marinating technology of meat processors and butchers into the home. Marinates meats, poultry, fish, veggies, tofu, fruit in just 5 to 20 minutes and does a better job than 24 hours of pan or bag soak marination. The Patent-pending MariVac process uses a commercial-grade vacuum pump, which removes the air from the barrel causing the food's fibers to relax and stretch open to absorb substantially more marinade than pan soaking. Then the tumbling action massages and works the marinade deep into the food for moist fall-off -the-fork tender flavorful results. Triple the flavor with less than half the marinade in a fraction of the time."

You can buy one here.

Hawksmoor (14th March)

Message to all men out there....


If you've never heard of S & B day on March 14 th... then I suggest you type it into google right away!

Hawkmoor seemed to the perfect choice for such an occasion. Renowned for producing the best steaks in London, we were very excited about the trip.

It seems a rather unassuming location, however, once inside the masters in the kitchen certainly know how to cook a bloody good steak! All the meat comes from the Ginger Pig 'Observer Food Monthly Producer of the Year, and is lovingly reared in North Yorkshire'.

Before you sit down to tuck into a mighty piece of beef, be sure to have one their fabulous cocktails at the bar. (In my attempts to impress Cowie with my boozy knowledge I was stiched up by the barman who made me the stongest Cuban concoction you can possibly imagine)

Read below to see what Hawksmoor has to offer...

"Dictionary thick steaks from 28 day hung Longhorn cattle, pork chops from big happy Tamworths, racks of lamb from a flock of Swaledales grazed on heather moorland, all simply cooked on a real charcoal grill."

"For our cocktail list we've scoured our library of long out of print cocktail books. We've resurrected some great long lost classics and have added some of our own, invented by our award-winning bartenders. All are made with the finest ingredients available (and a lot of love)."

Our starter arrived along with someone else's as well which we tried to send back but they were having none of it insisting that we should have it anyway because no-one else was going to eat it! I'm not the kind of man to look a gift scallop in the shell...

Our steaks were tender, juicy, charred, rare as hell and perfectly seasoned. The fat had that brilliant, slightly crisp feel to it that gives me the shivers! This couldn't be London in 2007 without having triple cooked chips in a miniature aluminium bucket! That said they were delicious, especially when supercharged with the thickest bernaise sauce I have ever eaten. It's the kind of thing that would give Oli a reason to die on the spot!

It would be rude of me not to comment on the foot perfect service. The staff were charming and couldn't have made us feel more welcome; some of the best around.

It is quite a trek, especially if you live south of the river... but its worth the trip.

Glorious Saturday Steak

Woke up very late on Saturday morning, exhausted after yet another arduous week. Getting home on a Friday night at 10.30 is never fun and seems to happen too often these days. My stomach felt a bit dicey after my second lamb shish in two days! By 12 it was time to face the day. Super 14 rugby and some left over chips from last night kept me company on the sofa.



I made my way to the fridge in the vauge hope of finding something edible for breakfast. 2 sticky, over defrosted pheasants dominated in terms of space and smell! Bin for them. It makes me really cross to defrost food in advance and then have to throw it away because I haven't been at home to eat it! Such is life when you're starting out in a career I guess. 2 dubious eggs, half a dozen continental sausages, some onions and cheese leant themselves to whipping up a tremendous rendition of mexican scrambled eggs. A touch of smoked paprika and some chilli cut through my morning sloth! What they wanted for in terms of appearance they more than made up for with their flavour and spicy impact!



Simon and Andrew found me in my pants and tshirt dawdling on the couch when the came back from some early morning common action. On such an immense day of sport we decided to visit the Northcotte Road for some lunch. We went down the road for a sandwich and came back with a huge hunk of rump steak from Hennessy's, a poppy seed loaf from the Lighthouse and 3 enormous brownies and some shallots from the market!



I super heated the griddle pan, salted and oiled the steaks and trimmed the fat off. I added some extra salt to the fat, put a few sharp grooves in at and threw it in the pan to crisp up. As the fat started to sizzle we lobbed the shallots and mushrooms in the other pan and let them cook down to a sweet brown mush. In went the steaks for about 5 minutes on each side until the outsides were griddled with regular brown stripes and the centres were warm but pink. I added some balsamic to the onions and sliced the steak on an angle and loaded the heaving hunks of black and blue meat onto the buttered poppy seed break and spooned on the onions and mushrooms. And o my god it was amazing. Juicy. Salty. Sweet. And utterly delicious. Well done Hennessy's.

Next up is a BBQ at Rad's tonight.

Photos from Google and Flickr.